My best learning experience and one that changed the way I learned and went through school was in my high school grade 11 and 12 maths class. As someone who can generally pick up maths this class was the start of how I developed my own learning style. I had a teacher who was incredibly personable and eager to help, not only in class but anytime outside of class, I created a safe environment. As someone who takes pride in their work and places pressure on “perfection” asking for help and admitting to not understanding was not in my vocabulary at the time. The accepting learning environment made by the teacher is what changed the way I handle an issue. 

Too often it is easy to fall into the stream of “I don’t know anything”, “ I will never get this”, “ I am not smart enough, not good enough”. Which are all incorrect. The grade 11 class and teacher really challenged the way I approach a learning difficulty – and that is to bring it back to the basics. There is not one subject that can’t be brought back to the most simple of processes that can’t also be related to anything else. This led me to learn how to stop, say “I’m not sure what is going on here, where and when did I start getting lost on this concept” because my teacher, if you had a question would walk you through the problem and ask along the way at each step if the process made sense to you. This takes the negativity out of a blanket “I don’t understand, I’m dumb” statement and helps isolate exactly where something stopped registering. Which I really admire and am so thankful for this environment and learning how to stay calm and reflect on my own learning.

Moving forward in school I have had to apply this theory over and over, the art of how to approach problems and learning from what works and what needs more process time never stops. I can also say that this is not only how I approach school but also life tasks and problems.